


Préludes

by whalerdaud



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Tangled (2010) Fusion, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Slow Build, stay with me here
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-18 08:08:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28989003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whalerdaud/pseuds/whalerdaud
Summary: “Okay,Enjolras. Ask your questions and I’ll ask mine. While we’re at it, let’s try not to make this as painful as possible. It’ll be like twenty questions or something, whatever.” Enjolras looks confused. “It’s a game. At parties.”“I don’t doubt you,” he says, full of doubt.“Yes, you do.”“I need you to take me to Paris,” and sorry, fuckingwhat.
Relationships: Enjolras/Grantaire (Les Misérables)
Kudos: 24





	Préludes

**Author's Note:**

> *checks calendar* yes, i know. but you're here too.
> 
> grantaire's route from paris to rouen (which hopefully has at least one forest) is all kinds of impossible, but accuracy! i hardly know her!
> 
> title comes from [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qee4tKmKQIo&ab_channel=ItzhakPerlman-Topic). beta'd by [dadcorvo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dadcorvo) <3 enjoy!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s—devastating, really, as now he knows the unfortunate dilemma of Icarus’ plight, of how he looked to that great, unknowable body in the heavens and realized there was nothing in this world as tempting; realized, caught up in the flames, how impossible it was to bring a creation of the gods down to its knees.
> 
> And yet.

Three hours en route from Paris to somewhere outside Rouen, Grantaire’s spleen decides to stop doing official spleen business and instead give its two weeks. 

Which, fair. He’s surprised the poor guy lasted this long, what with maximum velocity sprinting far longer than is medically recommended for someone who only ever runs from gouache and cold coffee. He begs the rest of his body to follow suit and pass out on a nice, comfortable slab of dirt whenever it so pleases.

Paris passed in a blur of red: dozens of furious Parisian faces cursing in fright as Grantaire and company bounded by with $5.8 million worth of art stuffed under their arms in a fool’s errand of thievery, except it _worked_. A fool’s fortune, a buffoon’s doubloon, a half-wit’s _holy fucking fuck dude how are we not totally dead yet_?

He lost Courfeyrac somewhere around Aubergenville, Combeferre remarkably further out while crossing the Seine by a deserted café in Giverny, and now he’s about to lose himself—not to the officers still Tom and Jerry-ing him around an endless forest, but to the lost cause that is the endurance of his internal organs.

Blacking the absolute fuck out sounds splendid, a daydream turned literal-dream. Duck through a willow, adjust hands around the painting, mutter a string of curses, suck it up and vault over a fallen trunk, stick the landing, that’s right motherfucker. 

Any time now. It’d be quite the anticlimactic ending to this whole wild endeavor.

A cluster of quaint homes rise over a hill Grantaire struggles up: sleepy in the mid-spring morning’s shadow, clumps of colorful tudor styles pack together like a closely-knit group of friends; and nesting in a nearby orchard, dabs of melrose apples and ripe nectarines brush against his peripheral, painted in his fleeting memory in a manner reminiscent of those lovely few Impressionists.

The gunfire stalking Grantaire since forever ago now ceases in this quiet quartier so unused to exhausted thieves bestowing freedom to a lock twice in one morning. He sidesteps crooked rocks and branches prancing as mischievous scamps under his gait and emerges in close breaths to a narrow path where, from above, an open window glistens like a swarm of starlight.

It’s not even a decision, really, for he’s still very much a fugitive at large. Maybe he should write home and boast about how his work in the art world has finally garnered the wealth of recognition it deserves, and isn’t that delightful news, dearest mother?

Grantaire reignites his spirit and hurls himself onto the wall of the house. In retrospect, Newton was right: an object in motion remains in motion except when cannonballing straight into a brick wall, yadda yadda yadda, point proven. A win for all the physicists out there at the expense of one bruised and battered French man. 

He seizes a lifeline of budding rose vines ascending to the third story, teeth gritted against sudden pricks to his palms—but hey, it beats bullets to his brain—and here, he meets an impasse. A committee of malevolent forces must’ve voted in favor of striking upon Grantaire one terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, for a mesh screen blocks not only the open window, but his salvation. A fool’s karmic revenge.

In the underbrush, whispers of footsteps strengthen as mumbled vowels capture coherence, collect and build into shouts betraying a terrifying closeness.

This sucks, like this is truly a colossal vacuum of a situation, but if what stands between him and a lifetime not behind bars is the punk shirt from every underground party scene in Europe, then again, it’s not even a decision, really. With a swift kick to the mesh, he stumbles inside the house and promptly shuts the window with great force, soon covered by cardinal curtains.

His spleen cheers him, and it’s incredible. No, Combeferre—not impossible, but a goddamn miracle.

“Alone at last,” Grantaire sighs. He leans his stolen painting against the window and stands back to admire a hard day’s good work. It’s very quiet in the house.

The universe, sensing he’s spoken for the first time in several hours with complete relief, resumes its divine position of fucking shit up. A sharp inhale comes from behind before pain erupts on one side of his head, blinding. Grantaire thinks he yells or something, grabs hastily at his ear and at the very least curses God, but it’s hard to tell with all his blood rushing up, black webs crawling into his vision.

“Dude, what,” he slurs, clenching his head. “Uh, what—the fuck?”

There’s an answer, but he isn’t listening. “ _Augh_ ,” he focuses on conveying instead. 

“For the love of all that is holy, please pass out now. Please. Oh my god, get _out_.” 

When Grantaire does neither, a small meteor collides with his chest and thrusts him into another brick wall, great. Except this wall seems to be poorly made of books, spines rasping against his spine as a few volumes thud to the floor. Slowly, he cracks open an eye to reveal twin pillars of red—is he dying? this is embarrassing—raised high above him, the meteor caught in their grasp, although it might actually be literally anything else.

Then—a heady rumbling against his head, quiet mutters, close warm breaths with distaste sharp in its mouth. Someone’s speaking very close to him. Oh, if only one of these several books contained the story of his life so he could flip to this confounding chapter and read the title, each footnote and scrawl in the margins, to find out what, exactly, he’s meant to do next.

“If you’re threatening me, I can't really hear it,” says Grantaire, gesturing to his head. “There’s this ringing in my ears, you see, and wow, I wonder how that got there. I’ve got no clue, not a goddamn one, and you?”

“Sorry about this,” says someone, which is never a phrase followed by anything good, so Grantaire reaches for the distant red to break its intent, bend its wrist, _anything_ , yet the cosmic weapon pitches down, plummets onto his skull with a potent finality.

He drags a heavy hand down the books as the floor surges up, finally getting his loss of consciousness wet dream in the worst way possible.

* 

Light seeps into his soul, wakefulness a temptress to his drowned mind yet a devil to his lonely heart, and he wakes, chin bowed against his chest devoid of blood. It’s a sad win. Grantaire’s heart spirals at having no idea where he is, where _is_ he, until—oh, right. Eyes. He has those.

Lifting his battered head reveals the rest of himself roped against a chair: arms flat against the armrests, legs snug beside the legs, and around him, of course, is a room—a bedroom, in fact.

It’s like falling inside the mind of one of those classical thinkers who, after a fit of self-professed revolution, arrived from prison with more angry thoughts than they knew what to do with; and so, as all great leaders do, they confessed to the page. Surrounding Grantaire’s chair are books upon broader, thicker books upon pages stuffed briskly between the spines of more books, _everywhere_ , no inch spared. The Library of Alexandria didn’t burn to the blaze of Caesar’s wild troops but instead fled in the night to this little room.

If he turned in this lost piece of history, his other criminal charges would cancel out. Not eager to do the situational math on this one, he declares the answer a firm, definite, unequivocal, unambiguous _shit, maybe_.

“Where am I?” he asks, more in an existential manner, but the bedroom answers.

“France. Not Paris, though not very far, I think.” Grantaire starts so bad the chair nearly tips over. “Sorry, sorry—I’ve never done this sort of thing before. Are the ropes too tight?”

“No,” he manages, because the bedroom is a man who might’ve actually _been_ at the burning of Alexandria as a fine statue submerged in the rubble, one who’s now emerged in perfect fashion like those ashen bodies of Pompeii, a tragic victim of Midas thoroughly touched by mythic corruption, the rapturous melody spoken from Orpheus’ gilded lyre, and okay, that’s enough classical comparisons for at least an hour.

Sounds good, but hey, Grantaire to Grantaire, have you considered just one more? And don’t forget to blame it on the head wound: if he had died from one of many adversaries who fought to kill him today alone, this wouldn’t be Heaven. This wouldn’t even be Hell, rather some blank slate room where an angel judges his shortcomings for all eternity, violent golden hair the final sun of his life.

The man frowns at him, deep brows settling over a gentle ridge.

Eyes. The ones he has. The ones staring at the man in silence and creeping everyone out. Right.

Grantaire lifts a brow. “I asked where we are, not where we aren’t, or has a new commune sprung up without my permission, a little garden of ‘Not Paris,’ hm?”

He glances away, back again. “I _do_ know where we are, relatively speaking. Not in Paris, since the lights come from there, and not south of it. There’s regional humidity differences and the terrain isn’t—when factoring in vegetation, it’s clear that, I mean—the Seine flows north to the sea _through_ here, to the English Channel—”

“We’re three hours from Paris on foot,” says Grantaire, amused. “A bit short of two by car. But I’m sure all that’s accurate, too. Fine work there, detective. The promotion’s yours for sure.”

Instead of responding with questions as to why some fucking guy is in his house, the man raises a tray between them, placating: a breakfast spread, scones and eggs and raspberries from the orchard, all softened by a white hydrangea vased in the middle like a truce flag.

He clears his throat and nudges the flower. “An apology for, uh, hurting you. I didn’t know how else to subdue you without causing any pain.”

It’s cute. Definitely poisoned. Thankfully Grantaire doesn’t have to think about it much as sunlight hits the silver platter and bounces back into his eyes. He squints left at the meshed open window, the only light besides a few dark lamps.

“Why would you hit my head, I need my head,” he groans. “And you brought me food.”

The man grimaces. “I’ve never had a guest before. Is it strange to bring you something?” he says, trying to decipher the unspoken rules of a hostage situation.

“No, I guess it’s just that sort of thing where Hansel and Gretel sit down and eat blow pops with the witch before she snaps their heads off. Yes, it’s fucking strange.”

“That’s not what happens,” he insists, like he can’t help himself. “It would completely ruin the moral.”

“What, don’t trust strangers? Nice one, dude. And that wouldn’t ruin—if anything, it all makes a lot more sense. Kids sneak into a house, kids squat with a total stranger, kids bite it. End of story.”

“It’s not,” the man starts, fingers tightening around the tray, “it isn’t Hansel and Gretel’s fault their parents abandoned them in the woods, or that they didn’t want them.” He frowns. “That they _couldn’t_ want them. How is it their fault a famine erased half their chances of survival? It’s like, did Germany even _try_ to allocate resources to its farmers during what was undeniably a huge depression—”

“Hell yeah,” Grantaire cheers. “When in doubt, blame the government.”

“And anyway, Goldilocks defines this situation better. Everyone gets out alive and writes it down as a terrible misunderstanding.”

He laughs. “Uh, no. They’re bears. Bears eat people. That’s Bears 101, dude.”

“Very rarely, and only when they’re provoked.” A considering pause. “Which they somewhat were, I suppose.”

“You suppose, do you,” he sighs. “So which version of this story are we getting, Mama Bear?”

A flush, light on his cheeks, noticed only because Grantaire’s looking. “Right,” says the man, and at Grantaire’s _don’t want it, thanks?_ at the breakfast, he crosses the room, sets the untouched food on the fireplace mantle, and doesn’t turn around.

After an odd moment, he continues to not turn around, or to speak. 

Again, it’s very quiet in the house. Life’s soft hum slips through the window, a cacophony of springtime leisure. Grantaire listens for police sirens.

Whatever the man’s working up the nerve to say, he knows he’s not going to like it. No one stresses over delivering good news, like ‘Hey! What a gargantuan goof, a fantastical fit of folly we’ve caught ourselves in, so unlike our good-natured selves. Here, I’ll show you to the door, my good sir, and why don’t you borrow some sugar on the way out?’ Never fucking ever.

“Hey,” says Grantaire, “I’m going to count the people in this room. Let’s see, there’s you, and then there’s—woah, no way, _me_? How can this be?” he gasps. “But no, it’s true. I’m still here. Thought you’d like to know, for no special reason.”

“Quiet, I’m thinking,” says the man, and after another few seconds of this fabled ‘thinking,’ he peeks over his shoulder, mouth twisted. It isn’t until Grantaire’s bewildered look that he stutters back, drags a rickety chair along the carpeted mahogany and sits before him with a particular shade of cautiousness, a massive book held in his iron grip like a shield. 

Open mouth, closed mouth. Conflicted lines between his brows, mountains of wilder. No more words.

Silence heightens the blood rush in Grantaire’s ears until the urge to poke and prod at his swelling knot overcomes him, not to mention the strange, stuffy weight settled between locks of hair that, without question, was not there an hour ago. With the twitch of his fingers comes the annoying realization that he knows he’s going to speak before he does it.

“Did you hit me with the goddamn Rosetta Stone?” he grumbles, which could very well be in the room.

“It’s ‘The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism, Second Edition,’ but it doesn’t—” the man blinks, his focus returning. “That doesn’t matter. It’s actually more like _you_ bent it, what with bringing about the circumstances of its unintended use.”

Sure enough, one of the book’s hardcover corners bends backwards, almost like someone dog-eared the outside rather than a page. Ah, the famed not-meteor, in the very rocky flesh.

“Oh, sorry for getting my concussed blood all over your second edition, like really, truly,” Grantaire drawls, all sugar sweet. “But, and this is just a suggestion here, take it or leave it—some perspective, dude? For heaven’s sake, you’ve got a man tied to your chair, what are you _doing_? Threaten me, wave around a knife, carve me up slowly—go all Christmas dinner on my ass!”

“I’m not going to point a knife at you, that’s just plain reckless. I’m not insane.”

“And kidnapping a stranger makes you the perfect judge of sanity?”

“I’m not kidnapping you—”

Grantaire stares in disbelief, jostles his tied arms for good measure. “Right man, I can totally see how you aren’t completely holding me against my will right now.”

“—I’m asking questions in a reinforced manner,” he says, as if it couldn’t be any other way. 

“A one-sided reinforced manner.”

The man crosses his arms, jaw locked. “Trust me, I’m holding myself back,” and Grantaire doesn’t like _that_.

“Alright, let’s entertain the idea that this isn’t a kidnapping, which it absolutely is, by the way. So why am I still here, huh?” he questions, leaning in conspiratorially. “A little while ago it sounded a lot like you wanted nothing to do with me, so is this just, what—non negotiable small talk? Several accidental slips of the tongue?” What would Freud think? Shit, who cares.

For some reason, he picks the least consequential comment to razor-focus on. “Like I wanted nothing to do with—you could hear me?” 

Grantaire rolls his eyes at the ceiling. “Pass out, get out, die already. Yeah, I got the message, buddy.”

“But,” the man starts, intensely confused, “you still didn’t leave, so why weren’t you listening to me? Why didn’t you just go out the same way you came in?”

“Because it felt like I was inside of a fucking lawnmower!” he bursts out, frustrated. “But thanks for the confidence, it’s really thrilling. I’m absolutely drowning in your good word over here.”

Grantaire looks at the curtained right window, the disarray of books—a good chunk of which he’s now realizing are journals—littering the bedroom, anywhere but the open and oddly searching gaze pinning him down, unable to ask the question that’s eating Grantaire alive.

“God, just ask me already.” Might as well get this out in the open.

A short huff, exasperated. “I literally have no idea what you’re talking about,” says the man, looking like he has some idea what Grantaire’s talking about.

“You’re really not going to—fine, I’ll shove my head under the guillotine.” He clears his throat and begins his best, and therefore worst, imitation. “Oh strange, handsome man with the most dazzling eyes I’ve ever come across, why, oh _why_ did you break into my little home with your strong, handsome arms?”

“Oh.” The man glances to the book in his lap, fingers tracing its thick spine. “Don’t worry, I’d much prefer I didn’t know, for legal purposes,” he says, and Grantaire’s almost in love, but more so suspicious.

“I don’t believe you. Listen, Blondie—”

“It’s Enjolras,” he says with one hundred percent seriousness, as if that’s a perfectly mortal name to have.

“Okay, _Enjolras_. Ask your questions and I’ll ask mine. While we’re at it, let’s try not to make this as painful as possible. It’ll be like twenty questions or something, whatever.” Enjolras looks confused. “It’s a game. At parties.”

“I don’t doubt you,” he says, full of doubt.

“Yes, you do.”

“I need you to take me to Paris,” and sorry, fucking _what_.

Enjolras rushes it all in one tense breath yet manages to leave footnotes: _how’s that for doubt, you fool_ , because he needs to win the argument or else Earth will break orbit and explode into the sun.

“Why would I do that of my own free will?” Grantaire asks, like a fool, and Enjolras shows him why, praytell, he’ll do exactly that with none of his own free will. For sale: free will, never used.

“Is this yours?” Enjolras holds up a black Klettersack. A familiar black Klettersack. A black, broken buckle, sticky side pocket, _twice_ stolen Klettersack.

Thank _God_ he dumped his gun before ditching Le Chesnay, lodged between some loose bricks in a half-deteriorated laverie somewhere down the way. He runs the mental numbers on what incriminating evidence resides at the bottom of the bag, but there’s nothing inherently evil in cheap snack food, empty cigarette packs, and a dozen assorted museum pamphlets.

“What if I say no?” he shoots back. “Hm? Because technically that’s true.”

Enjolras eyes the bag like it’s started oozing green slime. “Why would you steal something so ugly—”

“What the _fuck_ ,” Grantaire blurts out, much louder than intended. 

As if sunbathing on the decline of Sisyphus’ hill, he’s struck by what Enjolras is really saying, by the moral of the story itself.

“Enjolras. Enjolras, you didn’t,” he insists, turning right at roughly the speed of light. A metaphorical dotted line hovers in front of the red curtains in the shape of his missing painting, and he whines, not present enough to stop himself.

“You did, you totally did. Shit, Enjolras.” Grantaire’s never felt so thrown, so full of urgency with nowhere to go. “Oh, you’ve killed me. Where’s my painting? What the hell did you do to it? God, you can’t just set it down anywhere, do you have any idea—any goddamn idea what it’s worth, how much work I put into it? Do you know what you’ve just done to me, Enjolras, you’ve _ruined_ me.”

“Stop saying my name,” says Enjolras, utterly unmoved, which only grates against Grantaire’s abject panic. “I didn’t burn it or rip it to shreds, nothing quite so iconoclastic. It’s safe.”

“Goddamn it, give it back to me. It’s mine. Give it back before I _seriously_ lose it.” He tugs against the ropes, swivels his head around the room in a frenzy: in the desk drawers, under the bed’s rumpled covers, behind masses of scrawled pages stuck to the walls?

“Keep it up and you’ll scuff the floor. Or bruise yourself.”

“Fuck you.” Grantaire, spiteful, continues to scuff and bruise in a glorious act of rebellion.

He rolls his eyes. “Fine, tire yourself out and see how inclined I am to give anything back. Of course you won’t make this easy for me,” he mutters, leaning back, “or for any of us, at that, and you won’t realize that any opposition only serves to go against everyone’s best interests, right?”

“Oh my god, dude, how about you put aside your incredible arrogance for one second and still my beating heart,” Grantaire growls. “Where’d you stash my painting, Enjolras?”

A warm breeze sighs into the room and ruffles Enjolras’ hair, fingers loose around his curls. His face alights, cool eyes seizing golden streams until it overflows into his eyelashes, down faint cheeks. Grantaire can’t hate him, so he hates himself a little more.

“Yours?” he asks, somewhere on the spectrum of impressed. “You painted it?”

Did he paint that motley of spirited brushstrokes where ill-lit oil paint stains and burden the mind, where the canvas itself reflects enough to haunt the soul of the beholder?

“Yeah,” says Grantaire, because he can’t be serious.

But then Enjolras smiles, almost shy. “I couldn’t look away from it. Seriously, I don’t know the first thing about art, but everything pushes against itself, nothing on the canvas agrees, and yet the chaos isn’t ugly. It isn’t mindless. It _works_. Intensity rubbing shoulders with a violent sense of beauty. It’s very…”

He trails off, shooting cautious glances at Grantaire who nods as if to say _continue, why not_ , and quieter, _hell yeah I’ll take a loophole, what stolen painting_?

“Very angry. Full of momentum, like the spread of wind through their hair only burdens the cause by slowing them down. I think it’s comforting, like a mirror. No one likes to feel alone,” he says, and then privately, like it’s a secret, “It’s beautiful. You must be a well-liked artist.”

“Thanks,” says Grantaire instead of doing something stupid, like proposing. “Hey, how about I give it a super extra-special autograph, free of charge,” and then they’re back on the topic of give me the painting, Enjolras.

Arguing with someone who has a seemingly endless well of righteousness about every concept known to man, Grantaire soon realizes, isn’t fun. Enjolras cites censorship, the unethical destruction of art in the mid-twentieth century, and, against all odds, Plato’s Allegory of the Cave in his defense as to why he won’t, in Grantaire’s own words, fuck up his painting with crayons or spilled macaroni art.

Arguing with someone who’s very easy to rile up, however, is _great_ fun. Very highly recommended.

Enjolras doesn’t seem to agree. “I’m trying to make a deal with you,” he says, vexation growing. “Or really, the same deal as before but one you seem unwilling to acknowledge.”

Grantaire oohs and aahs. “My hands are expectantly crossed over my lap in some alternate universe where I have gorilla muscles and long ago emancipated myself. Just thought you’d like to know, for reasons.” A smile, too much teeth. “However, I politely decline.”

“Have you honestly not realized,” he starts, low and frustrated, “that I can keep you here for hours with no consequences, no interruptions, no distractions whatsoever, and you have no say at all in the matter? Or are you really that brainless—”

“Woah, woah, I thought this wasn’t a kidnapping?”

“It’s not. I’m simply informing you with great passion that I have all the time in the world to work this out, if you’ll just cooperate,” and Grantaire’s tired of dancing around this graceless troupe of elephants.

He rolls his shoulders with a put upon sigh. “Look, you don’t want to make a deal with me, I’m awful at deals. One time I promised a friend I’d get his pants hemmed if he bought me some brie, but I’d somehow found myself crowded inside some backwater inn at three in the morning drinking terrible, _awful_ wine, and worst of all, I’d gambled away my _own_ pants in a game of dominoes.” Uplifted chin, crocodile bravado. “Please, spare me your pity. They were hideous pants. If anything, it was the most favorable outcome.”

Steadfastly bitter, Enjolras casts a blind eye to the conversational fork in the road and smothers the gas with a heavy foot, honest to the course. 

“Let me go and I’ll be gone,” Grantaire relents. “But—look, I can’t take you to Paris, so don’t turn me into the cops, man, that’s _so_ lame. You’ll regret it harder than you’ve ever regretted anything in your entire life. Seriously.”

No bone in Enjolras’ body will know regret, but he’s trying to convince a hungry fisherman to unhook his sad, flapping fish body from the line, so anything goes. Except Enjolras’ grip whitens on his security book, mouth a tightrope, all previous fight in flight.

“Um,” he stumbles, very still, “that—I really wasn’t planning on doing that. It never even occurred to me, actually. Did, uh,” he pauses, looking like he wants to split up and look for clues, but Grantaire’s in a foul mood and would rather hoard his bones than throw one.

“Did I kill someone?” he fills in, just to watch Enjolras’ shoulders sharpen a bit more. “Hm, did I?” he drawls curiously, throwing in a scandalized gasp for good measure. “Is that why you bonked me with the world’s thickest snooze fest, because something about my slouch suggested killer?”

“You’re dressed head to toe in black and oh, what else am I forgetting, let me think.” Enjolras rests his chin in one hand, faux Thinker. “You _broke into my house_. There it is.”

Grantaire frowns down at his green shirt. “Are you colorblind?”

A similar frown. “Having color blindness doesn’t mean you can’t see color. It means you struggle with distinguishing red from green, generally speaking, but you can still somewhat _see_ red and green. And in my defense, your shirt isn’t easy to notice under all that—” he stops, really looking at Grantaire’s chest. “It’s warm out, why are you even wearing wool?”

“Lotta talk for someone who can’t see green.”

“Stop being difficult, I’m not fucking colorblind!” Enjolras hides his face behind his hands, grumbling incoherent dissents. In the meantime: stuffed under the windowsill covered in knick knacks, through the bedroom’s only door which could lead to a hallway, or a torture chamber, or a _creamatorium_ —

He must notice Grantaire standing on a cliff with one hand over his eyes, surveying the room while giddying like an old-timey prospector, for he pinches the bridge of his nose and lets out a tired noise. “For the record, this isn’t going how I wanted it to at all,” he mutters. “Just—calm down, okay? I’m not going to maim you or strip your painting for parts or, God, _call the police_.”

Grantaire bites out a laugh. “Good, now all that’s left is to watch as I slowly lose my mind in this chair. Citizens of France, be amazed!”

“Will you?” Enjolras humors him, dropping his hands.

“Wait, let me check my pockets, and—nope, not there. Maybe in my shoes? Would you believe it, dude, everything’s coming up empty. I’m like a baby eating spaghetti for the first time, losing my mind all over the place.”

Wholly unimpressed. “Stop distracting me. Can we return to this deal now, is that alright?” He sits up. “I want to—first, let me lay out the general idea and if you have questions, we can hone in on the finer details.” Uninterrupted, he says, “So, I need you—”

“To take me, or you, to Paris. See, it’s even crazy when _I_ say it. What a funny idea.” Grantaire ignores Enjolras’ protests and continues, “I wasn’t sure if that was a hallucination since, you know, it makes no goddamn sense.”

“Like I said, we can discuss everything in detail.”

Grantaire scoffs. “Why do you even want to go to Paris? It’s overrated to a stupid degree. You’ve gotta know this, it’s like question four on the ‘Are You Allowed To Be French?’ decennial quiz, right? There’s nothing in that old city. Absolutely nothing.”

He’s lying. There’s many things in Paris: tourist traps, overpriced ganache desserts, squadrons waiting to ambush fugitive art thieves—all the goods.

“I’m certain that’s not true,” says Enjolras, proving his godlike power by reading Grantaire’s mind.

“Prove me wrong,” he dares. “Go alone, send me a postcard. You’re old enough. It’s time to flee the nest, spread your wings and all that shit. I literally don’t have time right now to be your babysitter.”

Enjolras’ mouth twists in a decidedly not cute way, council approved. “More like a tour guide, or a bodyguard. Crime has increased by at least forty percent since I last checked. My information’s a bit outdated, so it’s likely higher, I think. I’ve been trying to find the latest statistical trends for the city.”

This confirms Grantaire’s Library of Alexandria theory if all these books are split pre-Caesar stabbing and post-Caesar salad. Several feather pens lodged in inkwells and a candelabra by the door alter the timeline to include the invention of the wheel, because what else is he supposed to do with that information?

“How likely is it that all crime increased, no criminal left behind, like every burglar and tax evader banded together in the name of crime-friendship to hit their crime-quota for the year? Officer, arrest this man! He did _crime_ on me!”

Enjolras stands in one quick motion, hands thrown up. “For the love of Christ, can you take anything seriously?” he begs, breathing out once in a fit of exasperation before his arms fall as fists at his sides, all that fury glaring down at Grantaire.

“I’m senseless against my will,” he says, calm in a way he knows to be irritating. “It’s a survival reflex.”

“That’s very surprising, considering how much I’d like to wring your neck right now.”

“May I remind you,” he snaps, “the only reason I’m still here is because _you_ , for some sadistic reason, refuse to untie me. I’d much prefer these bonds unbound, my stolen art unstolen, this hostage situation unhostaged. You get the idea.”

Enjolras looks pained. “It’s not that simple.”

“It is, man. It really is. You don’t have to ask _me_ for help. Sometimes I’m an asshole, senselessly. And sometimes, on the rare occasion, I’m a real dick.”

The absurdity of the situation finally seeps into Enjolras and his blazing mind, quelling the bark. Terrible and tragic haunting spill across his soul and summon an utterly shattered pull to his face, a terrifying shade of fear; a light goes out in him.

It’s very unsettling. Grantaire wants to jump screaming out the window, or if he ever could, steal the bright morning star as solace for his troubled heart. But as long as he’s trapped in this room, ‘tis but a dream.

“Is it, like, a sexual thing?” he asks, nudging the ropes. “Gotta be honest, not doing it for me. But hey, try me on a different day when I’m maybe not somewhat heavily concussed.”

A switch flips, radiance beckoned home—is it brighter, bolder? Enjolras tosses his security book on the bed and snatches a page from the wall, reclaiming his seat in a blur.

“Listen to me,” he commands. “Do you know what these are?”

Half of Enjolras’ face pokes above the page, eyes wide with intense hopefulness while gauging Grantaire’s reaction of—well, let’s see. He glances at what could be a sketch, had its artist possessed the enormous brain to hand cognitive leap necessary for drawing, and had it not resembled an ape’s attempt at communication. Man, he really doesn’t know the first thing about art or how to hold a pen, it seems.

“Yeah,” he says, resisting the urge to recoil in fright. “Scariest thing I’ve seen all day. No, no, in my entire life. You drew it?”

A well-deserved eye roll. “Fine, whatever, but do you know what it is?”

Second time’s a charm, so Grantaire looks again: some black squares with white erased in the middle, big blobs of what could be fires, but then again Godzilla for how massive they are. Is that a meteor or the moon’s distant cousin, sappy diseased-moon? Second time’s misplaced it’s charm and chivalry is dead.

He winces. “Art’s all about interpretation anyway, when you get down to it. Some kind of weird avant-garde landscape? Ooh, is it my turn for show-and-tell next?”

“These—” Enjolras points to the Godzilla moon fires, “—are the trees outside my window,” and yeah, Grantaire vaguely sees the outline of the bedroom’s interior along the sides, “and in the sky, look, there’s these floating lights. They come every year—”

Enjolras rips more “drawings” from the wall and scoots closer. “They come every year on my birthday, _only_ on my birthday, just appearing at night over the trees, and that can’t be a coincidence, right? It can’t be, because,” he frowns, shuffles through pages for Grantaire like a prehistoric slideshow. “Look, they’re coming from the south somewhere towards Paris, so I thought oh, maybe there’s a light holiday or, or a remembrance day of some sort—”

“Light holiday,” Grantaire echoes. “Makes sense, for where would we as a society be without dear old Edison.” Right? Maybe. “Though scientists are always ripping each other off these days, so who knows,” but Enjolras makes the smart choice and ignores him.

“I always thought it was strange. I’ve tried to narrow it down for years but there’s no explanation in anything I’ve read, no preamble, just—the lights, on my birthday. Why would something so significant happen without reason on that day specifically out of literal hundreds? It’s like,” Enjolras catches this wistful, faraway look. “It’s like they’re meant for me. Like they’re calling to me.”

Alright, so how did Grantaire miss all the ingredients for hot crazy man in the woods soup when they’re right in front of him, clear as day: woods, hot man, with a heaping dash of crazy. The gang’s all here.

“And I’m not crazy, but my birthday _is_ tomorrow,” he rushes, once again reaching god-status by reading Grantaire’s mind like it’s written on his forehead.

“Okay,” he says, because you don’t taunt a bull when it’s staring longingly into your very soul. “Congratulations. I don’t like where this is going.”

The bedroom, at this point, enters a discernible shift; something off-kilter, as if outside the house a giant wandering by grew curious enough to push an ivy-covered wall with one finger, tilting everything inside to the slightest degree. It’s thick in the air, this feeling that truth will finally deliver itself from the maze of uncertainty that is Enjolras’ mind, or the lump lodged in his throat, the daze locking his speech in silence.

He raises his chin, each crease of fabric poised in determination. “I’m about ninety-five percent certain the lights come from Paris, but I don’t currently have any means of getting there myself, so.” A look, truly divulging, hunger sharpening. “Tomorrow evening they’ll illuminate the night sky with these lights. Take me to them and return me home safely—then, and only then, will I return your painting to you. That’s my deal.”

The words exist at last: Enjolras and his caution thrown to the wind, or the abominable force that’s apparently Grantaire, who at the moment is finding himself rather weak.

He breathes out. “In Paris,” he says, skeptical.

“In Paris, as we’ve both reiterated many times.”

“Hm,” he says, and then nothing.

Enjolras continues to talk about transportation methods and deadlines, hotels with barely passable reviews on sites no one’s heard of, and dinner options. Good for him. Grantaire, in the meantime, experiences his third mini-crisis in the span of about six hours.

Paris will kill him, strike him down in the very flesh, but revealing why is a bad idea. A very bad idea. Unless a divine bolt of indifference electrocutes Enjolras in the next few seconds, he doesn’t see a viable ending where he and his beloved painting escape in one piece, and alone.

Time passes in a linear fashion. Meanwhile, Enjolras remains very much not on fire, _fuck_.

Grantaire palms the armrest, unwitting. “Just to clarify, you’re somewhat confident that I’m not a serial axe murderer with, like, a maniacal bloodlust for blonds and their deals?”

“No,” says Enjolras, and he really doesn’t want to consider what that means. “And I didn’t find an axe anywhere,” he says with an offhand wave, the ‘while I was snooping through your stuff’ part very much implied, and he at least has the sense to fluster.

“Yeah, you wouldn’t until it’s impaled in your vertebrae. I’m just that good.” Grantaire realizes this perhaps isn’t convincing material for a guy who’s pulling all the strings—or tying all the strings, around him, that is—so he adds a second too late, “Theoretically.”

Enjolras, the deity he is, continues to avoid all lightning strikes. Damn the nature of humans not to combust out of thin air and Grantaire’s own inability to cast spells. No other option besides the stupid one, it seems. Rouen, what an ungodly place.

“So let me say this outloud in case something weird happened on the path between your mouth and my ears,” he begins, eyes closed. “You want little ol’ me to play chaperone for a few hours, escort you to Paris so you can dote and fawn over some stars, then bring you back here with not a hair touched on your head? And then I’ll rescue my painting from the fiery clutches of—the monster under your bed?”

A near smile. “Not under my bed, but yes. In theory.”

“In that case, my final answer is ‘what is boogie monster in the closet?’ No wait, I’ve got it! Let’s go all in on ‘swamp thing in the back lake,’ why don’t we?” Grantaire rubs his hands together, except not physically because, well. “Oh man, I’m about to buy the sexiest hot tub water’s ever seen, but why stop there—think bigger, is the moon financially attainable? Or do I need to go through some kind of intergalactic currency exchange for a couple of moon bucks?”

“You’re funny,” says Enjolras, his face doing nothing to support this statement.

_Ha, funny looking_! Grantaire’s brain dutifully supplies. “And you’re out of your mind.”

“I can’t stay here anymore,” he says, quiet yet so sure, and Grantaire’s missing something.

“I feel similarly,” he nods. “Maybe we should start a support group: men victimized by four walls and a roof, the first ever of its kind. I think the grassroots would be a pain, but eventually it’d take off. What do you think?”

Enjolras hooks a foot around Grantaire’s chair leg and pulls until space, galactic or otherwise, wanes. It’s startling and deliberate, and he’s only one man. One weak, foolish man.

“Please,” he says, burning and glowing. “Please take me from here.”

Grantaire’s breath flutters his hair. “Yes.”

“Wait, what—”

“Enjolras, pack your bags. We’re going to Paris!”

It’s a tight, familiar city, capable of hiding a world of secrets; and really, how adept can the police ever be? Also, the painting. Grantaire would much rather gamble away a life in prison than spend the frightful few seconds needed for Courfeyrac to decide: to flay alive, or not to flay alive?

The sun migrates into the room and hibernates inside Enjolras: his cheeks, alive with a harsh smile, and his eyes, heavy with freedom, spread into Grantaire’s cynical mind with beauty.

He stumbles up, barely comprehensible. “We’re going to Paris. We’re going to—I’m going to Paris. Today. Right now.” He turns away, hides his face from view, and Grantaire wonders what secret look consumes him. “Paris. That’s impossible! That’s, really—”

With a light pat on his shoulder, Enjolras surges through the room in a haste to pack. “You won’t regret it. Trust me, I won’t be a difficult travel companion. You won’t even know I’m here,” which he seriously doubts. “Thank you. _Thank_ you! I’ll keep your painting secure in the meantime, like it’s from one of the greats,” which it is, “and it could be one day, with your talent. I’m positive.”

“Wow, that’s very nice of you to say.” Grantaire clears his throat. “So, Paris. Am I getting there psychically, or—”

“Hm?” Enjolras peeks above the other side of his bed, thoroughly enthused, and stands while rifling through Very Important Documents, if the collision of papers and fervent flick of his wrist reveal anything.

“Kind of still tied to a chair here. If you wanted to do anything about that, like, today or whenever you’re free, I guess. It’s not an easy life, chair life.”

A shortness of rustling, then a spry huff. “Here,” he says, then gets to work on unbinding the ties that bind, or something. “Sorry, I’m not—uh, sorry.”

And in hindsight, maybe Grantaire should’ve figured out how to get a hold of those gorilla muscles, if only so he’d never know how anyone could impart such ardent warmth with only a bare graze, or how soft fingers are when pressed against knuckles, circled around the wrist to slip loose its trapping knot. How agony starts low in the stomach and journeys out, indecently evocative. How easily it becomes twice as agonizing, because it all happens again, because Grantaire has two hands; and then, two ankles.

If only so he’d never know the sight before him: Enjolras drops down, bends between his spread legs with a startling unawareness. Quiet interlaces with the sound of rustling, disrupted only by a rapid heartbeat. Grantaire, hands free and fingers spread wide, wondering.

It’s—devastating, really, as now he knows the unfortunate dilemma of Icarus’ plight, of how he looked to that great, unknowable body in the heavens and realized there was nothing in this world as tempting; realized, caught up in the flames, how impossible it was to bring a creation of the gods down to its knees.

And yet.

Gold curls weave along his head like grains of rich wheat—and where is the sower? An orchard of scents, sweet and heady, somewhat lulling, none avid descriptors of its wearer. His own cuffed pants leg rides up once its rope tugs, briefly tightening, endlessly tortuous. Enjolras winces an apology, tufts moving like he’s about to glance up.

Grantaire’s gaze flees the scene in a hurry, shoved aside as if his eyes and that hair were magnets buzzing with repulsion. Again: eyes, the ones he has, the ones staring in silence and creeping everyone out. Right.

Don’t panic, he’s fine. It’s fine. Act natural. Oh yeah, now that you mention it, tiny screeching voice living inside this mess of a mind, the wallpaper _is_ very cool. Regal, sort of floral, thin spirals of gold twisting to the beamed ceiling like _Almond Blossoms_ , but drenched in crimson, very _Carrie_. So true, tiny voice. Yeah. Great.

Any other time consuming thoughts that wish to be heard, now’s your chance. No, no need to take a number, just step right up and begin your absurdly distracting routine of why say, Grantaire? Did’ya take out the trash before hopping in a car and robbing that place something stupid? Let’s discuss the milk, Grantaire, is it high time to pick up another gallon or is the expired one not quite done stinking the place up yet?

Here’s one: hey Grantaire, do you have forty fucking ankles? Is that a thing that’s happened?

_Why_ did Enjolras have to tie his arms and legs on the front of the chair like some kind of crazy person, and not behind the chair like any rational abductor would do—or is this Grantaire’s own fault for not having ape arms, what the fuck.

“Done,” Enjolras announces, standing up, and Grantaire nods a normal amount of times while staring down a blob-shaped patch of dust on the fireplace mantle. So interesting. “I’ll be over here packing.”

And he’s gone just like that, busy and blind to any fourth mini-crises of the day.

With his newfound freedom, Grantaire stretches a few stiff muscles and prods at rings of pink coloring his wrists, nothing to writhe in pain over. Prepared to wait for however long it takes to pack for an impromptu day trip with your fellow man, or until his body calms the fuck down, he’s rather shocked to spare a glance at Enjolras who is not over there packing, but _still here_ , silent with a particular strain of scrutiny that ticks him off.

Enjolras doesn’t want to let him out of his sight, and that’s a problem.

“Oh no,” Grantaire moans, throwing a faint hand across his forehead. “The operation was a failure, as I find myself with each and every limb still attached to my body. You’ll get it next time, doc.” He waves Enjolras off. “Go pack and pout at the same time. I’ll hold the line here.”

“Right,” he says, wilder mountains returning. “I’ll just be—” he gestures to the other side of the room with a frown before finally, _finally_ leaving, for real this time.

Grantaire’s considering how best to pass the time: cause unholy suffering to the chair, soliloquize to a cast stone bust of Rousseau on the windowsill, or embrace the lotus pose, when Enjolras throws him—his _bag_ , holy mother of God. He wants to cuddle it and weep as angels harmonize from the rafter’s cobwebs, but instead he acts like a normal person with all their sanity in check and nods his thanks. Nonchalant, aloof, mysteriously cool.

Behind the thin veil of mental privacy dividing the room, he digs through his dearly beloved and happily finds all his shit accounted for, then unfurls his pants pockets and finds them even more sparse than he last remembers. His phone is missing—tardy, absent, the whole nine, which, yeah. Makes sense.

“Do I qualify for the bundle deal after this is all over: my painting and phone, two for the untrustworthy price of one?”

“I’ll return it for free,” Enjolras mumbles from his three-year jungle expedition inside the perilous depths of his closet.

Grantaire leans against a bookcase, not quite trusting any seats. “At least tell me you’re bringing _your_ phone, man. I’m not super thrilled about the prospect of screaming for help if one of us, like, loses a limb, or on the off-chance we encounter a merry-beary family of three, our _lives_.”

“Let’s be optimistic. It’s Paris after all, not the dark ages.”

“Mm, that’s debatable. But your phone. Please tell me you’ve got it with you.”

If Enjolras were a radio, he’d be emitting high frequencies of static right about now. “I don’t have one,” he finally lands on, possibly now hiding in the closet.

“Okay,” says Grantaire after a second, in search of that legendary optimism. “Interesting. Now, when you say you don’t have a phone, do you mean not currently on your person, or do you view property ownership as unethical consumption under the capitalist machine—”

Enjolras emerges from the closet with a bag in hand and moves to his desk, equally cluttered, not quite meeting his eye.

“I never asked for one as a kid and the desire never manifested,” he grumbles, and now that Grantaire’s unlocked some backstory, he notices the room is, in fact, missing a television. “I didn’t have any friends to contact while growing up, so it’s no momentous loss, more like a blessing in disguise. I could focus my time elsewhere rather than worsen my eyesight or impair any other vital functions, like melatonin release. Studies show—”

Sisyphus sneezes and the boulder rushes back down, _shit_. 

Grantaire rises from the bookcase on unsteady feet, mind stalling: Enjolras never had any friends growing up, which makes sense if his hospitality back then matches the chair-related events of today, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he doesn’t have friends _now_ , as an adult. Friends, who have no idea where he's headed and who can’t be reached if something goes wrong. 

If the authorities find Grantaire with stolen art _and_ an entire missing person, he may as well chain ‘The Johns Hopkins Guide to Knocking Motherfuckers Out, Second Edition’ to his ankle and nosedive off the edge of the world.

“Woah, hold up,” he urges, hands raised. “Not that I’m not the number one fan of studies and what they show, but shouldn’t, um—don’t you need to tell anyone you’re leaving for a bit?” Fugitive, you’re a _fugitive_. “And I don’t feel any rushing desire to say who with, do you—hey, there’s an idea! Why don’t we keep the very secret details of this arrangement to our very secret selves, hm?”

Enjolras picks up a book, too casual. “I don’t live alone, if that’s what you’re asking,” he says, and Grantaire remembers his words from earlier with an acute pull to his spine.

“So no interruptions, no distractions or whatever, that wasn’t just a bluff?”

“Did you think it was?” He tilts his head, which isn’t an answer that makes Grantaire feel better about himself at this current moment in time. 

No. “Yes, I did.”

“I was serious,” he declares, which applies unequivocally to anything Enjolras ever thinks or feels or says, Grantaire’s realizing. “And it’d be best if we kept this to ourselves, like you said. I’ll only be gone a few hours. No one should notice.”

‘Should,’ another thing that’s doing no favors for Grantaire’s self-esteem. “No telling anyone. Great, okay, got it. Awesome plan.” He pauses, lifts a finger. “But here’s an alternative: why don’t we do your roommate a solid and _not_ freak them out if they come home early and find a giant Enjolras-shaped hole in the wall? That’d be kind of shitty, you know, to purposefully worry someone close to you like that.”

It feels like a punch to the face, the speed with which Enjolras’ gaze rips from his. It lands safely on his bag, soon thrown over one shoulder as he tightens the strap with what seems to be, from a bystander’s perspective, excessive force. Cruel and unusual punishment to an innocent satchel, if you will.

“Can we please not argue about this right now?” he snaps, irritation seeping back in as he joins Grantaire by the window. “My mother’s out for a few days. Let’s go.”

Grantaire dropkicks the teasing lobe of his brain deep into a vat of mental lava, then sticks a shiny gold star between his eyes for noticing Enjolras’ no-nonsense stance that, if challenged, would level-up from hostile to hospital. Not one to make things worse—okay, well, on _purpose_ —he spares one last weary look at the room, one final telepathic middle finger, and climbs out the window.

On the ground, life continues: grass weaves and blows, water spills from the falls behind the worn house like paint through a brush, and wisps of clouds mingle among the blue heavens, pale in the sunlight. 

The camera zooms out, extreme wide shot: Grantaire, alone in the woods, each crevice in the serpentine treeline burned red with the metaphorical glow of exit signs. Beneath the delicacy of spring, he lifts his head to the sun; slowly, silent between the severed mesh, Enjolras sees his mistake.

Freedom, and so close. He could leave, forget his painting and retreat to a payphone. Call Combeferre and Courfeyrac, meetup somewhere safe and figure out how the everloving fuck they pulled this thing off when so much went wrong. Amass the haul and keep it safe until the next step, days and weeks and months from now, miles between him and the bright daze of Rouen.

Enjolras fists a hand into the curtains with the other tight on the windowsill, body locked in a perpetual halfway state between his room and the outside world, and Grantaire realizes, despite the last hour: Enjolras is afraid to leave. Despite the voice in his head screaming at him to get _out, it’s the perfect time to run_ , this is now his problem, too. Curse the world for its cruelness, for having contracted the people to pull its weight in kindness.

He drags a tired hand down his face. “C’mon, Blondie,” he says, feet rooted in the dirt and arms out, cajoling. “Jump! If worst comes to worst, I’ll catch you.”

Enjolras doesn’t move. “What’s your name?”

“I’ll tell you when you get down here!” he shouts with no intention of following through.

In a move that novice magicians will revere and weep over for decades to come, Enjolras vanishes from the window and reappears mere seconds later at the front door, squinting through veins of light.

Right. Doors, and the, uh, doors they open. Grantaire might as well have slapped a giant cartoon hole on the wall and skipped through it with howls of villainous laughter left in his wake, but he’s spared only an impassively raised brow.

Enjolras shows his profile and beholds the world, greets the soft beauty which ravishes, cherishes, embraces his face; sunlight and shadow, joie de vivre incarnate, endowing vertigo to the soul of poets.

Enthralled by the new afternoon, he departs into the trees without a single glance back. Oh god, they’re really doing this. Time to cross that bridge while on that bridge, it seems.

“To Paris,” says Grantaire, pumping a weak fist in the air. “Yay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here's my inspo for [grantaire's tragic loss of pants story (rip)](https://firmine.tumblr.com/post/51750275471/now-that-i-have-figured-out-how-to-get-things-from) and [enjolras'](https://64.media.tumblr.com/bea67fb01f96d7c15cdcec1756652627/tumblr_pchws4OEmg1qizveyo8_1280.jpg) [ room ](https://64.media.tumblr.com/b0a8c5e437a1b54049f17acde83b7821/tumblr_pchws4OEmg1qizveyo7_1280.jpg)
> 
> next chapter might be up by the end of february, but more likely sometime next month (sorry)!


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